The Coe-Brown Northwood Academy volleyball team’s senior outside hitter, Emma Zeblisky, set the tone for the Bears’ three-game sweep of John Stark on Wednesday.

A fierce Zeblisky spike closed a decisive win in the first set, 25-10. CBNA (6-1) went on to sweep John Stark, 3-0, with strong serves and attacks to capitalize on gaps in the opposing court.

Zeblisky had nine kills and dominated in the second set as well. Similarly, junior outside hitter Kelli Daniel killed nine on only 19 attempts and had nine aces on 24 serve attempts.

Their offensive production was possible thanks to their libero, Haile Comeau, who had 10 digs defensively and initiated plays to win the serve back from John Stark (4-3).

“The team we are today looks nothing like the team that hit the court for our very first game in our very first week,” said Coe-Brown head coach Renee Zobel. “We’re completely different. I think we’re feeling good. We’ve embraced it – gritty, not pretty.”

The Generals started off slow in the first set, and although they improved set over set, they were unable to capitalize on their serves and made too many errors to stay in it. Coe-Brown was able to find answers for any kind of play Stark threw at them.

“I think the reason that we couldn’t get a lot of good setups had to do a lot with our service. We were getting balls up, but they weren’t great playable balls to get our hitters those sets. So I think really focusing on passing to target is going to be huge,” said John Stark head coach Alisha Flanagan.

The match seemed as if it might turn in the fated third set. All too often teams get complacent after winning two sets and let a match-winning third escape, and that almost happened on Wednesday night.

CBNA pulled ahead early in the third set, but the Generals started connecting well and forcing errors from the Bears. Daniel pulled her team ahead with three smart dumps to bring the score to 23-16, but the Generals battled back to a tie-break at 24-24.

“I think in the third set, we started to let mistakes get in our head and stopped playing each point for its own game and just lost a little bit of confidence. And that’s something, we’re young. We graduated most of the team last year,” said Zobel.

However, Coe-Brown mustered up the last bit of juice left to win the next two points and seal the game.

“Coe-Brown is a great team. They always are, and I think that we handled ourselves really well. We stayed composed for the most part throughout all three sets,” said Flanagan.

The  Bears were runners-up in Division II last season and are now 6-1 with 11 games to go. They’ve already topped the defending champions, Oyster River. The team seems well-connected and poised for another deep post-season run.

According to Zobel, the Bears have a long-standing tradition of singing Miley Cyrus’ iconic song “The Climb” before games since before she was a coach at CBNA.

“It’s talking about how it’s all about the journey. If you just keep going good things are going to happen, and that’s been kind of a cool thing. They’ve all come around this season. Keep working, see where we can get by the end of the season,” she said.